Donut charts – Extracting Deeper Insights with Funnels, Maps, and Hybrid Visualizations-1

Donut charts are an alternative to pie charts, which allows for better use of screen space. I would not recommend using donut charts for more than three categories. In this case, we will use it to look at the rate of opportunities closed. To create a donut chart, the steps are as follows:

  1. Drag your Dimension (in this case, Closed) to the Color mark, as shown in Figure 5.1:

Figure 5.1: Dragging Closed field to Color mark to create donut chart

  1. From the Marks menu, choose Pie, as shown in Figure 5.2:

Figure 5.2: Changing marks type to Pie to create donut chart

  1. Take your measure (in this case a count distinct of Opportunity ID) and drag it to the Angle mark, as shown in Figure 5.3:

Figure 5.3: Dragging Opportunity ID count to Angle mark for donut chart

  1. Your data should now look like a pie chart, as shown in Figure 5.4:

Figure 5.4: Initial donut chart created

  1. To create a donut chart we need to ‘trick’ Tableau into thinking there are two pie charts. To do so, in the Rows space, type the following, as shown in Figure 5.5:
    AVG(0)

Figure 5.5: Adding AVG(0) calculation to rows shelf to create stacked pies

  1. Then, repeat the same step again, as shown in Figure 5.6:

Figure 5.6: Adding second AVG(0) calculation to rows shelf

  1. You should now have two pie charts vertically stacked, as shown in Figure 5.7:

Figure 5.7: Vertically stacked pie charts created

8. Click on the caret that appears when hovering on either of the measures you have just created. A menu will, now, open, as shown in Figure 5.8:

Figure 5.8: Hovering over measure pill to access menu

  1. Click on the Dual Axis, as shown in Figure 5.9:

Figure 5.9: Selecting Dual Axis option

  1. Your pie charts are now on top of each other, so that it looks like you only have one pie chart. You also have 3 Marks menus now; one for each measure and one that controls both, as shown in Figure 5.10:

Figure 5.10: Stacked pie charts now overlapping as one chart

  1. Open one of the measure menus and remove all pills by dragging them away from the menu, as shown in Figure 5.11:

Figure 5.11: Removing pills from secondary measure

  1. From the same menu, click on the Color mark and select the color which matches your background (in this case white), as shown in Figure 5.12:

Figure 5.12: Changing secondary measure’s color to match background

  1. Still in the same menu, click on the Size mark and drag the indicator left to reduce the size of your chart, as shown in Figure 5.13:

Figure 5.13: Reducing secondary measure’s size

  1. Your chart should now start to look like a donut chart, as shown in Figure 5.14:

Figure 5.14: Donut chart taking shape